1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet textile printing apparatus that performs textile ink jet printing on fabric, that is, on target textile printing material.
2. The Relevant Technology
Hitherto, ink jet textile printing apparatuses that eject various colors of ink from a textile printing head to thereby print a desired image on the surface of fabrics (such as T-shirts) have been developed and come into widespread use. In such ink jet textile printing apparatuses, a set tray positions the fabric (such as a T-shirt or the like) and regulates the interval between the fabric and the surface of the textile printing head nozzle opening to be a predetermined distance.
The set trays are structured so that it is possible to replace and use a plurality of types of set trays having different shapes and sizes and the like according to 1) differences in the shape and size of the fabric to be printed; 2) differences in the size of the image to be printed or the direction to be printed; or 3) differences in the form of printing (such as cases in which multiple pieces of fabric are to be simultaneously printed on and cases in which only one piece of fabric is to be printed on. Thus, according to the respective printing objectives, the plurality of types of set trays are appropriately replaced with set trays matching the objectives of the printing and used by the user.
If the set tray actually set by the user was different than the set tray recognized by the ink jet textile printing apparatus, an image is sometimes printed at a position and in a direction different to that which the user was expecting, or ink ejected from the textile printing head sometimes comes out of the set tray and stains the environment around the set tray.
As one technology that improves textile printing defects based on such erroneous recognition of the set tray occurring at the time of replacing the set tray or the like, the technique shown in the following Patent Literature 1 has been provided. In this technique, comparison is made between the stored information of the type of the previous set tray and the designated information of the type of the current set tray. When the previous and current set trays types are different, notification is provided to the user, and the generation of the textile printing defects is often prevented in advance.